When you are the anvil, bear - when you are the hammer, strike

“..it was different back in my day…”

Heard that one before? Usually swiftly followed by a critique of how easy ‘the kids’ have it ‘nowadays’.

Well, life was different back ‘in the day’- except that ‘the day’ was about a quarter of a million years or so ago.?

There was a time when it was ‘easier’ - but only from the standpoint of knowing firstly, exactly what your job description was and secondly, knowing that there would be zero chance of hazard pay. It went something like this;

Dear Krug,?

Thank you for joining the nomadic tribe of Homo Neanderthalensis & Partners,?

The Tundra’s leading supplier of bespoke loin cloths and sabre tooth fodder.

Your job description, in fact your sole responsibilities in life, are as follows:

• If you want us to eat, hunt
• If you want us to survive, reproduce
• If you want to stay warm, figure out how to make these sticks?do the glowing, orange thing.

Please note that performance appraisals will be held constantly, every minute of every day. Get some nondescript infection, dead. Go hunting and zig instead of zag, dead. Break a leg and become a burden, you’re on your own pal.

We hope you enjoy a lifetime with us, which on average is about thirty five years or so.?

Yours Sincerely,

B.Rubble

Vice President Caveperson Relations

All jokes aside, there was a time when the sheer act of existence brought with it crisp immediacy of purpose and demanded sharp vitality. It was a high stakes games but the rules were clear and through sheer force of numbers and passage of time we managed to tip the odds in our favour.?

Fast forward a quarter of a million years and the ‘welcome letter’ is a little more complex. In fact, it’s a veritable tome, cleared by legal, gently massaged by human resources and your mere existence is of zero concern to the shareholder. And that’s just for the ‘work you’. Then there’s the completely non-existent handbook for negotiating ‘parent you’, partner you’, ‘personal you’, ‘social media you’, ‘hopes and dreams you’. It’s no longer enough to be successful at just one role. Now you must juggle a dozen hats, all the time, whilst living in a world that is simultaneously microscope, prism and loudspeaker.?

In other words, Krug is now shit out of luck.

Ok, so the world moved on - what’s your point.

My problem is that I don’t think Krug died, and I think it’s killing us.

“The cost of civilisation is a progressive trade off of vital existence” - Jack Donovan

“..From a purely personal perspective I see a society that is rocketing forward to a far more cerebral future - and rightly so. The days of needing the rugged frontiersman, the hunter/gatherer have all but passed.? It’s the speed with which we have moved forward that I believe has caught some of us out. Sure I’m good with the latest gadgets, I can harness the power of the internet and utilise all modern medicine has to offer to the betterment of me and mine. But whilst these skills have developed there lies deep within the recesses of my brain - the primordial lizard component that was shaped by millennia and will not be spliced away so quickly - a need to reaffirm that the savage is still there. That I still have the capacity to face the force of the wind and slash of the rain as Garland so eloquently puts it.

The problem lies in hearing that low guttural tone from deep within and understanding not only what it means, but how to set it free on the odd occasion in a manner that benefits not destroys…”

When I wrote those words as part of ‘The Lost Savage’ blog (you can read it here , a three minute read, tops) I knew deep down that is was only the tip of the iceberg of my entire thought process at the time, there was more brewing away. I talked about developing a toolkit for the ‘war within’ - that struggle to find a way to express the savage spirit, to let homo indomitus out to breathe and stretch and rage and run. All in a manner that added to our mosaic, a way that gave our lives depth and colour, not just blunt force aggression and directionless rage.

Over coffee with a wise friend last week I mentioned that in researching and preparing some new workshops I kept coming across personal leadership seminars and keynotes targeted at, and designed specifically for, women. No problem with that but it immediately triggered the question - why aren’t there any specifically for men? Is it because we should just be natural leaders? Because it’s not PC to say that we need help? Because the marketing department would have a fit over trying to promote it?

His answer was typically pithy.?

“Why would men need help with self leadership? It’s not like we’re killing ourselves at four times the rate of women...”

………..

So quick disclaimer.

I’m not a Doctor, or Psychologist (yet), or Social worker or tele-evangelist, or bespoke loin cloth wearer (especially after the letter from my local supermarket highlighting their somewhat new policy that states whilst recognising ‘paleo’ as a valid lifestyle choice they strongly discourage patrons from ‘attempting to spear their tomahawk steaks’...whilst wearing nothing but a brief pair of ‘Pete Evans Paleo Privacy Pants’..whatever, philistines)

What I am however, is a man.?

A father, a husband, a son, a brother. I have built and led large teams, climbed mountains, tried to be a scholar and a warrior (in the athletic sense). I’ve studied in some of the best business schools in the world, I’ve listened - in person - to everyone from Jack Welch to Bob Dylan (and he didn’t play Hurricane, #disappointed). Heard Jocko talk about ‘stepping it up’ and sat in freezing monasteries in the Himalayas trying to ‘turn it down’ - and all manner of in-between. Like many of us I’m simultaneously trying to raise boys, be a good husband, a good son, a good friend, build assets, make money, add value to everything within my reach all whilst also trying to figure out where the hell I fit in the world - just as me.

It’s the dilemma of trying to be a good man whilst being good at being a man. And an awful lot of that all goes on inside your own head. All the time. Hidden from view.

“It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you who you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”?- Patrick Rothfuss.

Before I can have any hope of leading others I must master the process of leadership of myself. Thoughts, actions, behaviours, rituals, beliefs. Whether I’m working with school students or first responders, the message is the same - you must find a way to develop a personal toolkit that is as broad and deep as possible. Today’s problems are rarely solved via a linear approach. Today everything is a virtual ‘Gordian Knot’

(a quick history lesson - the myth goes that the Gordian knot was a complex knot holding an ox-cart to a post in the city of Gordium around 400BC. An oracle had declared that whoever could untie the knot would go on to be ruler of all Asia. No one had managed to untie it until Alexander the Great arrived -? figuring that the task was simply to untie it, regardless of method, legend has it that he simply drew his sword and sliced the knot in two. He also went on to be ruler of all Asia. Chalk one up for brute force)

But back to our modern knots - today successful problem solvers draw from multiple fields, sometimes using knowledge from seemingly disparate or unexpected quarters, to develop creative and unique answers.?

In ‘The Lost Savage’ the toolkit focused on the value of? ‘healthy hardship’. The opportunity to pit yourself against the great outdoors - wherever you are, however you can. To fight the cold, the hills, the mud, the distance, the pain, the fear, the doubt. To give yourself the freedom to admit that you don’t know how this ends but that it’s important to you, so give yourself the best toolkit you can and set out. Building mental, emotional and physical resilience along the way. Often these challenges manifest as a ‘big ticket’ item - whether it’s your first big run, camping trip, spartan race, BJJ class, CrossFit competition or wild adventure. That means time - planning, training, preparing, maybe travel - all in all it’s a discrete, defined experience. The question that often comes back is - how do I build a mental framework that allows me to stay in control, to create some mental and emotional space to allow me to access my toolkit - so when the real world comes rushing in, I can use that framework to help give that which confronts me right, now some context, some perspective. To give me a chance to breathe, think and then act (and not the other way round)

It’s time for Krug to learn a trade. Metaphorically speaking.?

It’s time for Krug to stage what I like to call, A Blacksmiths Rebellion.

The Blacksmiths Rebellion.

Tell me a fact and I’ll listen.

Tell me the truth and I’ll believe you.

But tell me a story and I’ll remember.

Just below your hipster haircut is a basket made of collagen and calcium phosphate. Inside that basket is a pool of fluid rich in magnesium, sodium and chloride. Floating in that pool is approximately 1400 grams of grey squishy stuff capable of performing approximately a billion billion calculations per second (yes that’s ‘billion’ twice, not a typo). Rather than give you some cool acronym or tick the box checklist to work from when it comes to building a mental framework I’d rather put that ‘wet wear’ (it’s like hardware only human) to good use. We are going to build something - furnished by your mind, set up for you and you alone, indestructible, unassailable and ever present.

Checklists and acronyms are almost of plague proportions when it comes to leadership presentations and ‘motivational’ keynotes. The problem is they lack...humanity. They lack everything a great story has - depth, context, colour, emotion. They are static, they can’t evolve, grow, expand and contract, live and breathe. A mental projection, a metaphysical place designed by you and for you has all those things - and that’s why it stays with you, grows with you, serves your purposes.?

So what’s the story? Well you can have whatever you want, it’s your brain pan, but let me walk you through my process as if it was yours and we can go from there.

Come with me.

Picture yourself walking along a well trodden dirt path. Days of rain have turned the layers of dust into a malleable cover of mud, giving slightly under each step as your boots land and roll, moving you towards the open doorway of the old building ahead. You reach out and pull aside the heavy canvas drape that holds back the daylight from the cold, shadowy space within. Take a breath, step over the well worn piece stone slab that marks the threshold and let the canvas fall back. The sounds of the world outside, of people and labour and laughter and rain, are now somewhat muffled. Take another breath. Let your eyes adjust to the light. What was a dark room now makes itself known.?

A few drops of rain sneak through the thatched roof and join their brethren in pools on the floor. To your right, just in from the doorway, sits an anvil, perched upon a stout hardwood stump, itself girt by two rings of cold, black steel. The entire right side of the room is dominated by the massive earthenware fireplace and chimney, to the side a great set of bellows hang, ready to breathe life into the coals. From the forge, a brick hearth stretches out at waist height, thrust deep into the room - the coals could be spread out from the heart of the forge, providing light and heat, giving space to develop a deep bed of coals, ready to be put to work.?

At the end of the hearth a flat band of steel juts out and curves around, hanging from the band is a vast array of tongs, hammers and clamps. Two large barrels of water stand out like stepping stones, bridging the gap from the forges’ hearth to the hefty oak table to runs the length of the left hand side of the room. The table is a raw slab of rough hewn oak beams, banded by steel straps. The surface of the table looks like a scorched earth warzone, scarred, hacked and torched. Hammers and vices lay about like discarded weapons left on a battlefield by some conquered army. All we need is here. Take a deep breath, time to work.

To me, the blacksmith is the perfect metaphor. As I came at it from multiple angles I could see direct lines from my mythical forge and smithy to the tools and framework I could use in my modern day existence. The forge itself, the heat, the coals were elemental and raw, our good friend Krug would recognise and relate to that. The feel of the weight of the hammer, to swing and strike - not just with blunt force but precision, accuracy, repetition, all these characteristics that carried value from then to now.?

To take a sullen block of damascus steel and coax from it a tool, a weapon, a work of art - all through planning, the application of force and measure, skill and labour. Let’s work around the room - look at the fictional space and tools and the framework they provide.

Forge & Bellows.?

Flint and steel launch specks of immolation into the tinder. A blackening, a wisp of delicate grey smoke and then the spark of flame. A gentle breath to coax life, a careful and thoughtful layering of twig and branch and then we build. As the coals spread we set to work at the bellows, pumping forth great gusts, stoking, pouring waves of oxygen into a hungry fire.

I talk about the concept of ‘creating space’ in our severely overexposed lives, and one of the ways I suggest you can do that is through breathwork. This isn’t woo-woo, kumbaya kind of stuff - the scientist in me wouldn’t permit such shenanigans.? It doesn’t have to be some complex ritual nor do you need a PhD in biomechanics to understand it all. At its most elemental - simply become aware of your breathing and take control. Close your mouth, breath through your nose and start counting, get a cadence - in, hold, out, hold -? get some control. Think of the bellows - no breath, no fire, too much and you snuff it out. Be in control. This is a very deep rabbit hole if you want to truly delve into it

Remember the bellows and forge - breath - start there.

Get control and then light and stoke your fire.

Anvil

Immutable, inevitable. Doom and deconstruction for the raw block of iron that is cast upon it, but evolution for that which will rise from that toil and destruction. You rest a hand on it - it feels almost preternaturally cold, as if it is actually sucking the warmth out of the room. Somehow it’s mere, unblinking, unrelenting, silent presence seems savage.

Sounds a lot like the real world. Failure, loss, when the unyielding meets the unwilling something has to give. You mould or you break.?

The message is more than just needing to yield and mould and shape to evolve - to sometimes accept that what you are is no longer workable and you must become something else.?

I also think of the anvil as something to throw myself against to allow that evolution. Mother Nature is the perfect example of something that cares not a whit for your existence and will no more yield to you that it will to anyone else.?

Know that the anvils that are cast before us can be chance to grow and change.??

Evolution from fire and hammer blow.

For all your days be prepared, and meet them ever alike.?When you are the anvil, bear - when you are the hammer, strike.?- Edwin Markham

Swing that Hammer.

The handle is well worn, scratched and stained it still settles easily into the hand, the weight balanced yet poised to strike. It has such an understated presence, silent yet capable of so much in the instant it’s swung - exploding from dormant to deliverance in a second. Two hundred thousand years ago our ancestors used a rock - all this time later and all we have done is shape the rock and add a handle. A sure sign of a tool that needs little evolution to be perfect.

There is something enormously gratifying in the feel and heft of a solid, heavy hammer. The grip of the handle, the weight and balance of the head. A raw and impassive force -? can be used to bring something to it’s destruction or to coax it into beginning anew. But here it’s not just about brute strength - it’s about hitting as hard as you want, where you want, when you want - not as hard as you can, where you can, when you can. It’s power applied with precision and perfection. That’s the difference between someone who not only has the pre-requisite skill, but can apply it specifically - because they are in control.?

Just because the sheer and overwhelming application of force or aggression is an answer doesn’t mean it is the answer. That’s the difference betweens someone who’s emotions have robbed them of the power of choice - merely having a process to allow yourself to be able to make a choice can be the difference between an action regretted or a decision well made.

When the blood’s pumping and the emotions are high, remember your hammer.

There are no mistakes.

In researching my ‘blacksmith’ concept this fact was the most striking for me - there are no mistakes.?

A work in progress may fail due to factors outside of our control - a defect in the metal, a fluctuation in temperature or timing, client changes their mind. Sometimes they are in our control - that’s the risk of any work - sometimes you just get it wrong.?

See the mistake or failure for what it is - part of the process - back to the forge you go and we try again. Imagine that mindset now in our real world. Don’t cast it aside in anger, take it back to the forge, and start again.?

Have the mindset that there are no mistakes - look around your blacksmiths for discarded, see them for the opportunities they are.

The Blacksmiths Rebellion.

Why is it a rebellion? Everything today is about becoming more connected - between social media platforms, whether it’s IG, FB or LI, - it’s about content and value and commenting and seeing who can be the ‘most connected’ Ironically - one of the masters of utilising these platforms - Gary V - himself advocates to worry less about the breadth and more about the depth of these connections. It’s about how much we can do (ever check your phone whilst you’re on the toilet?), how fast we can do it (check your emails and reply at night?) and showing no weakness (ever delete a social post because you didn’t get the traction you wanted?).

When is the last time you actually turned off?

And sitting on the couch binge watching Netflix doesn’t count.?

Hitting the PS5 to game it up with your mates rather than work doesn’t count.

Going nuts in the gym with your headphones on doesn’t count.

Being alone, for thirty minutes, doing nothing at all….counts.?

Regular and conscious disconnection will actually serve you in the long and short game - on every field. Rather than leveraging the latest app or tech to help you do this I want you to leverage the values and behaviour of a craft that thought making nails, by hand, one at a time, was a good idea. Sometimes the old way still has lessons to impart and value to derive.?

You don’t have to jump up, kick the car out of the garage and announce to the family that you are converting the garage into a blacksmiths workshop (having said that you wouldn’t be the first - turns out it’s a thing) but maybe, rather than trying to remember that eight letter acronym from the last motivation seminar you went to, or trying to recall step three from the five step plan you spotted on IG last week - just take a breath and let your mind step into the blacksmiths. Look around and see what you need;

• Check the forge, do the coals need air to breath and grow in force and flame or are they starved? Breath, gain control.?
• Anvils are a necessary part of creation, be malleable enough to grow, don’t let the seemingly invincible or insurmountable be your destruction.
• Are you wildly swinging the hammer or being precise, controlled and accurate??
• Don’t cast aside the failures, pick them up, learn from them, forge and begin again - a little wiser for the experience.
• Don’t be afraid to stoke the forge and swing the hammer, when it’s time to toil and strike, to furrow the brow and stand before the heat, bring it. But do it with the precision of a master of his craft. Be thoughtful, accurate and strong. Most of all, be in control.

Not everyone learns through lists and lines - sometimes a place, a vision, even if it exists nowhere but in your mind, can give you a place to not have to remember your framework but simply see it, smell it, hear it, remember it.

Look about, see what you need, fire the bellows, select your tool, and act.